CHAPEL HILL — One of the most difficult stretches a University of North Carolina basketball team has ever endured began Saturday at home with a game against No. 25 Pittsburgh. It couldn’t have gotten off to a better start.

James-Michael McAdoo scored 24 points and Marcus Paige added 18 more as the Tar Heels jumped into a double-digit lead in the second half and held off a Panthers’ rally for a 75-71 Atlantic Coast Conference win at the Dean Smith Center.

In winning their sixth straight game, the Tar Heels improved to 7-4 in ACC play and 17-7 overall, while 25th-ranked Pitt suffered its second straight heartbreaker, falling to 8-5 and 20-6.

North Carolina will continue its four-games-in-eight-days tour Monday night at Florida State before returning home to host Duke Thursday in the rescheduled game from last week and Wake Forest on Saturday.

On this day, the Tar Heels, who were playing Pitt for the first time in 18 years, led by 12 with 8:50 to play before holding on at the end, using a free throw from Brice Johnson with 2.8 seconds left to ice the win.

“We’re starting to inch closer to being one of the top teams,” said Paige, who was 5 of 6 from 3-point range. “We’ve been close. We just have to keep working hard and keep improving.”

UNC coach Roy Williams said he was pleased with most of what he saw from his players.

“I feel very good right now, but not very good about the way we played the last couple of minutes, or really the second half,” he said.

“I thought we had some really silly turnovers and some missed opportunities there. They’re awfully good, but we were able to make some plays.”

Pitt held a one-point lead over top-ranked Syracuse in the final seconds Wednesday, but freshman point guard Tyler Ennis drove down the floor and drained a long 3-pointer at the horn to keep the Orange undefeated with a crushing 58-56 victory. This one hurt almost as much after the Panthers rallied to within two, the final coming with about five minutes left at 63-61. Pitt had a number of chances in the final minute, but couldn’t find the answer.

“We lost to a good team and we had our opportunities,” said Pitt coach Jamie Dixon. “We came out here to out-rebound them and we didn’t (40-40). We had more turnovers than they did (14-13) and those were the two things we said we had to do. Congratulations to them, they played hard.”

The Tar Heels used strong play from McAdoo down the stretch as he scored six key points before fouling out with 25.6 seconds to play.

“He took over the game and gave us the lead,” Paige said of McAdoo. “He’s been playing outstanding. Tonight he was playing a great game and we just kept giving him the ball.”

The Tar Heels used seven straight points for a 53-44 advantage with 11:04 left and increased that to 12 with 8:50 to play. But the Panthers fought back and the Tar Heels had to survive a frantic final minute. The Tar Heels led by seven points with 55 seconds to play, and by six with 34 seconds to play, after Paige made a pair of free throws.

From there, though, the Panthers cut UNC’s lead to four with 26 seconds left, and Pitt, utilizing a full-court press, forced a turnover on UNC’s inbounds pass.

Jamel Artis, who’d made the free throws to make it a four-point game, was fouled again and went to the line, where he made the first of his free throws and missed the second. After a review, officials ruled the Tar Heels knocked the ball out of bounds, and the Panthers retained possession.

Pitt, however, missed its next three shots — including a Lamar Patterson 3-point attempt — and Johnson gave UNC a four-point lead with a free throw with 2.8 to play.

“The first thing I heard was my dad telling me to bend your knees and then Marcus said use your legs,” said Johnson, a 66 percent free-throw shooter. “I missed and I said let’s do this again. It went in and I said thank you.”

The loss was the latest in a string of close ones for Pittsburgh. Each of its last five games — a 2-3 stretch — has been decided by five points or less with two going to overtime.

“We’ve made some plays at the end of games and as you saw today, we didn’t,” Dixon said.

The Tar Heels, who trailed by as many as seven points, went on a 12-2 run late in the first half to take a 35-29 lead. A 3-pointer from Chris Jones gave Pitt a 27-23 lead before the UNC run. Johnson hit two free throws, McAdoo stole the ball near mid-court and went in for a breakaway dunk. A dunk from UNC’s Isaiah Hicks put UNC up 29-27 and after Jones hit two free throws to tie the game again at 29-29, Paige nailed a 3-pointer, was fouled and went to the free-throw line to complete the four-point play. McAdoo followed with a strong baseline drive and UNC led 35-29. A basket by Pitt’s James Robinson cut the Pitt deficit to 35-31 at the break.

“I think they are buying into the sense of urgency,” Williams said of his team.

“We’re not going to use our schedule as an excuse. It’s the schedule we have to play and we’ll show up.”

Johnson finished with 13 points and five blocked shots for the Tar Heels, while Pitt’s Lamar Patterson, considered one of the favorites for the league player of the year honor, had 16 points on 5 of 15 shooting.